WEB 2.0 AND RECRUITING

If you have never used Facebook you might be surprised at the number and size companies using it to run ads and recruit employees.  Here is a partial list of Companies using Facebook as a recruiting tool:

1.  Coca Cola (3,718,991 members)

2.  IBM (17,454 members)

3.  NASA (18,530 members)

4.  University of Alabama (16,142 members)

5.  The Central Intelligence Agency (762 fans)

6.  The National Security Agency (2,233 members)

7.  Ernst & Young accounting firm

8.  San Diego State University

9.  The Charleston Police

10. Alexian Brothers Catholic Monks

11. Troy-based Diversified Industrial Staffing Inc.

12. US Cellular

13. International law firm, Allen and Overy

14. John Holland Construction Company


This is just a small list of companies.  You can literally find thousands of companies on Facebook.  Did you notice how many members or followers there are for some of these companies? Yes, there are over 3.7 million members of the Coca Cola site.  While I don't necessarily think you should do something just because everyone else is doing it, it's hard to ignore these numbers.

Marty Brack
E-mail: mdbrack@crimson.ua.edu
Cell: 205-837-4098

I often see postings on FaceBook that say something to the effect, “Facebook is so addictive.” Have you ever thought that or wondered why that is?

I think one reason that FaceBook is addictive is that people are social by nature and we are curious about other people’s lives. We wonder how life has unfolded for old friends we haven’t seen in a long time. We are curious to know if the high school prom queen still looks as good today as she did 30 years ago, or if the star high school quarterback turned out to be a success or a bust off the field.

When we dig into the profiles of people from yesteryear it is fascinating to see what has happened to their lives. We want to know who went to college, where they went to school, and what they majored in. It is interesting to see who got married and had kids at an early age or who might still be single. We are curious what they look like and are amazed that the ugly duckling from elementary school turned out to be quite beautiful with time. We have to chuckle when we see that the most popular guy on campus is now bald and way overweight. Life certainly throws some punches and it is interesting to see how our friends handle them.

I remember a guy named Tony who was a shy, skinny kid who toted a calculator around in high school. Tony now has a PhD in Physics and is a professor at a distinguished university in California. I remember another Tony who was in the band. He grew up down the street in the modest, blue collar neighborhood with me. After connecting with him on Facebook I discovered he had an MBA from Harvard and was the president of a company in Dallas. Wow. I never would have dreamed anyone from my neighbor would accomplish so much.

Facebook is truly interesting to explore.

Marty Brack
E-mail: mdbrack@crimson.ua.edu
Cell: 205-837-4098

Our IT Department really doesn’t like to give free reign to the internet. Their main concern is to protect our network from viruses and hackers who want to steal or damage our intellectual property. In addition, our Company is concerned about employee productivity. If employees sit around at work connecting with each other on a social network site, then they can’t be doing anything productive, right? These concerns are legitimate and need to be addressed so that you can effectively recruit using web 2.0 tools.

In an attempt to control the risks, our company like many others, forbids access to Facebook and other social networking sites. If you are going to post ads and recruit candidates on Facebook then you will have to explain to your IT Department what you are trying to do. My suggestion is to talk with your IT Department about what you want to do. Involve them up front. You might want to involve your IT department in designing the ad and ask for their assistance in posting it. If they are involved on the front end you will have less worry about explaining what you are doing later on. Also, as you see positive results from this recruiting channel, publish reports to management on your success. When your local management sees that you really are producing good candidates through social networking sites, they will be less likely to question your activities in the future.

Marty Brack
E-mail: mdbrack@crimson.ua.edu
Cell: 205-837-4098

Data from Nielsen Online, which measures Internet traffic, found that more than 60 percent of Twitter users stopped using the free social networking site a month after joining.

Although Twitter has some advantages, it’s limitations make it a less desirable recruiting tool. According to Nielson’s research most Twitter users quit accessing the site after a month. If your potential recruits aren’t viewing your tweets then it can’t be effective as a recruiting tool.

Reference: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518409,00.html

Marty Brack
E-mail: mdbrack@crimson.ua.edu
Cell: 205-837-4098

Effective recruiting requires a multi-channel approach. What do I mean by that? In years past the primary channel was the newspaper. Job seekers checked the Sunday job ads, mailed a resume on Monday, and hoped to get a call. While some companies still run ads in newspaper, more ads are ran on the big job boards such as CareeBuilder, Monster, and Hotjobs. A smart job seeker will search all avenues since many jobs are not posted on multiple forums.

I view the social network sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as just another channel to the job seekers. With millions of users on these social network sites a recruiter may be able to find a good candidate who is not actively looking for a job. A diverse group of people live on Facebook; more professional oriented people live on LinkedIn. The good thing about the social network sites is that you can have open dialog with the job seeker. Unlike the newspaper and the job board site, the social network sites open up communication between the recruiter and job seeker. These sites also can link back to the company’s website so the job seeker can explore more about the company.

Two way channels are much better than one way! Happy recruiting or happy job seeking, depending on your point of view.

Marty Brack
E-mail: mdbrack@crimson.ua.edu

Cell: 205-837-4098

I love to fly fish!  It’s enjoyable to wade through rivers looking for the big catch. The shallow streams of the Smokey Mountain National Park offer a beautiful setting to spend some time in nature. However, trying to hook the elusive Rainbow or Brook Trout is not always easy. Sometimes you have to change your bait to something agreeable to the fish or keep working you way up stream to find a place where the fish are biting. Even if your technique is good there may not be any fish in the “hole” and you have to move on to better waters.

As an HR Manager recruiting is one of my essential functions. So why am talking about fishing and what is the big fuss about Facebook?  

There are a lot of similarities between recruiting and fishing. If the talented candidates you are seeking are not “biting” on your ad you have to try something else.  Advertising in a different place or through a different media is often necessary.  You have to recruit where the people are.
According to the fact sheet posted on Facebook, there are 300 million active users! Out of that many people the odds of a user (or hopefully many) having the same qualifications and skills that I’m looking for are pretty good. Even if the “right person” doesn’t happen to see my job posting, chances are good that someone else will see it and pass the message on to someone who might be looking for a job. It’s all about networking. As a recruiter you have to be actively looking where the right people are, whether it’s at the career center at a university, or on-line at a social network site. Whatever works – you have to give it a shot.

Fishing and recruiting really share a lot of things in common!

In the next few weeks I will be posting some jobs on Facebook and will let you know how well it does.

Marty Brack
E-mail: mdbrack@crimson.ua.edu
Cell: 205-837-4098

Another Web 2.0 application is Twitter. (www.twitter.com). According to the definition on Wikinomics, “Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications.” 1

Twitter has it’s positives and negatives. I personally find twitter too limiting. Your messages to your “followers” can only be 140 characters long which makes it hard to say very much. On the other hand, it’s great for short messages. One particularly good use might be to broadcast safety or security alerts. Companies could alert employees about an emergency without having to select e-mail addresses like you do in regular e-mail. Twitter works great for a large group to coordinate meetings, or status updates. Twitter is good for reminders and short status updates that don’t require a lot of detail. If you find Twitter too limiting, an option is to post a link on Twitter to another site that contains a more complete message that you are trying to get across.

To go to the website and set up a (free) account click on this link: http://www.twitter.com
Once you get your account set up, look me up!

To see a short video on Twitter, click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

Reference:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter. Retrieved 9/22/09 from the internet.

Marty Brack
E-mail: mdbrack@crimson.ua.edu
Cell: 205-837-4098

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 40 million members and growing rapidly. LinkedIn is a business-oriented social network dedicated to helping professionals maintain a list of connections. These connections can then be used to find a job, find out more about potential employers, and fill your own job vacancies through the social network. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.

LinkedIn - which is free for users who want to post their virtual resumes; invite in colleagues, friends and acquaintances; and join online groups such as alumni associations and professional associations -- has 40 million users. Over the next few months I will be developing a LinkedIn site for my employer and will test how well it does in attracting interested applicants.

Networking is the most valuable tool for job seekers, their most recent survey said, followed by social/professional networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

To go to the website and set up a (free) account click on this link: http://www.linkedin.com

To view my LinkedIn site click on this link: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/marty-brack-sphr/8/74/937

To see a short video on LinkedIn click on this link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzT3JVUGUzM

Marty Brack
E-mail: mdbrack@crimson.ua.edu
Cell: 205-837-4098

If you are like me and have moved around since your high school days, you may not have seen old classmates, friends, neighbors, or distant family in many years. I’ve enjoyed connecting with old friends that I haven’t seen in 30 years. Facebook is a social utility for connecting people with those around them – friends, family, coworkers, or simply others with similar interests. Founded in February 2004, Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people's real-world social connections. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment. 1

Facebook started in 2004 as a closed community for college students (requiring users to sign up with a valid university email address) but has since expanded beyond that to high schools, corporations, regional networks, or any user across the world. Facebook allows users to connect and share information in a variety of ways.

The interesting thing about Facebook is that you connect with someone you haven’t seen in years and see what is going on in their life. You have the ability to see their contact information, educational history, photos, connections to their website or blog, if they have one, and view comments they have posted.

Following are some facts posted by Facebook. 2

General Growth
• More than 300 million active users
• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older

User Engagement
• Average user has 130 friends on the site
• More than 6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
• More than 40 million status updates each day
• More than 10 million users become fans of Pages each day

Applications
• More than 2 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
• More than 14 million videos uploaded each month
• More than 2 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each week
• More than 3 million events created each month
• More than 45 million active user groups exist on the site

International Growth
• More than 65 translations available on the site
• About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States

References:
1. http://www.new.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics#/press/info.php?factsheet
2. http://www.new.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Marty Brack
E-mail: mdbrack@crimson.ua.edu
Cell: 205-837-4098

Web 2.0 is a hot topic. The term “Web 2.0” refers to the next generation of Internet applications that allow (even encourage) the average Internet user to collaborate and share information online. The first phase of the Web—Web 1.0—concluding in 2000 was characterized by bringing useful content online through the application of Web technologies to information (such as weather forecasts) in order to make them available on the Web to millions of potential users worldwide. A consequence was that a vast amount of useful content was now available—addressable via URLs and accessible over HTTP—with the requisite content being delivered via HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

In Web 2.0 sites the content is user generated. It is the users who both create the information and control what they show to the outside world. A defining characteristic of Web 2.0 sites is their ability to facilitate collaboration. Web 2.0 is a collection of technologies that create a participatory, common space where multimedia can be shared, discussed, and manipulated with little or no digital programming sophistication. Generically named social networking, Web 2.0 sites vary from personal data (FaceBook & MySpace), photos (Flickr), music (podcasts), videos (YouTube), diaries or opinions (blogs), or encyclopedic definitions (wikis like Wikipedia).

If Web 1.0 (even though we did not know it was “1.0” at the time) was a read-only medium, today’s Web 2.0 is read/write. In all these sites users can create their own pages, upload pictures, documents, music, etc. and collaborate other users. Users become part of the site development instead of just readers who consume someone else’s work.

In the blogs to come, I will expand further on web 2.0 and will address how Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are being used as a recruiting tool.

Marty Brack
E-mail: mdbrack@crimson.ua.edu
Cell: 205-837-4098

The blog site is a requirement of a non-thesis research class (CSM582) at the University of Alabama.  This blog will discuss how Web 2.0 products, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are being used as recruiting tools.

Postings will begin September 21, 2009 and run for one month.  I will begin by discussing what Web 2.0 refers to and give a brief overview of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  Throughout the month I will add postings on facts about the social networking sites, how they are used, and their effectiveness as recruiting tools.

Marty Brack
Graduate Student
University of Alabama